• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksM
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    1 day ago

    I kinda did though, but I do think they’re misrepresenting it. It was in a different thread in a different context. I honestly didn’t recognize the user was the same because I don’t keep track of usernames unless they’re an obvious troll.

    Here’s the discussion.

    I was arguing for a “wait and see” approach to federation saying we don’t have enough evidence to say maga.place is bad enough to defederate. The evidence presented was the domain name (90% seemed to stop there) and posts in their conservative community using sketchy sources and nothing about their admins or mods.

    The discussion shifted to the sources themselves, and they asked whether I’d support a ban on “Der Sturmer” (Nazi publication prior to WWII) and I said no, but I wouldn’t read it because I don’t like obvious propaganda. I don’t believe in banning any media and instead think good media should crowd out the bad. I’d say the same for any extremist propaganda because freedom of speech is very important to me.

    I think it was meant as a gotcha question, since that seems to be how that user argues. I absolutely don’t read or support any Nazi anything, but I will defend their right to publish just as I would for anything else I disagree with.

    • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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      15 hours ago

      good media should crowd out the bad.

      Does should mean will?

      Disinformation is not erased by correction. Brains don’t work that way. Reactionary radicalization must be prevented, because curing it is a thousand times harder. This is protecting people from harm through speech, as much as censoring directed threats or bigoted abuse. Polite phrasing on intolerable beliefs is just mobster speak: ‘it would be a shame if anything happened to your children.’

      I think it was meant as a gotcha question

      It was meant as a universal touchstone. Surely, I thought, everybody recognizes literal nazi propaganda should have been stopped, at some point. But no: that obvious extreme was met with milquetoast ‘well I wouldn’t read it.’ Neither did the Jews, buddy. Didn’t help. Systemic problems aren’t about you.

      By the by, calling pointed questions “gotchas” is also a conservative tactic. I opened gently with acknowledgement that at one point the nazi party was just some schmucks. But not only did you suggest the problem with pro-holocaust propaganda was sourcing, you outright invited modern fascists to the table, so long as their racism is scientific racism. You can’t wedge yourself under a low bar and claim it was a trap.